And Other Stories
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The Man With Two Left Feet - And Other Stories P. G. Wodehouse The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man With Two Left Feet, by P. G. Wodehouse #26 in our series by P. G. Wodehouse Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: The Man With Two Left Feet And Other Stories Author: P. G. Wodehouse Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7471] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 6, 2003] [Date last updated: October 19, 2004] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET *** Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team Livros Grátis http://www.livrosgratis.com.br Milhares de livros grátis para download. THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET _and Other Stories_ by P. G. WODEHOUSE 1917 CONTENTS BILL THE BLOODHOUND EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE WILTON'S HOLIDAY THE MIXER--I THE MIXER--II CROWNED HEADS AT GEISENHEIMER'S THE MAKING OF MAC'S ONE TOUCH OF NATURE BLACK FOR LUCK THE ROMANCE OF AN UGLY POLICEMAN A SEA OF TROUBLES THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET BILL THE BLOODHOUND There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Consider the case of Henry Pifield Rice, detective. I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He had never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about bloodstains would have filled a library. The sort of job they gave Henry was to stand outside a restaurant in the rain, and note what time someone inside left it. In short, it is not 'Pifield Rice, Investigator. No. 1.--The Adventure of the Maharajah's Ruby' that I submit to your notice, but the unsensational doings of a quite commonplace young man, variously known to his comrades at the Bureau as 'Fathead', 'That blighter what's-his-name', and 'Here, you!' Henry lived in a boarding-house in Guildford Street. One day a new girl came to the boarding-house, and sat next to Henry at meals. Her name was Alice Weston. She was small and quiet, and rather pretty. They got on splendidly. Their conversation, at first confined to the weather and the moving-pictures, rapidly became more intimate. Henry was surprised to find that she was on the stage, in the chorus. Previous chorus-girls at the boarding-house had been of a more pronounced type--good girls, but noisy, and apt to wear beauty-spots. Alice Weston was different. 'I'm rehearsing at present,' she said. 'I'm going out on tour next month in "The Girl From Brighton". What do you do, Mr Rice?' Henry paused for a moment before replying. He knew how sensational he was going to be. 'I'm a detective.' Usually, when he told girls his profession, squeaks of amazed admiration greeted him. Now he was chagrined to perceive in the brown eyes that met his distinct disapproval. 'What's the matter?' he said, a little anxiously, for even at this early stage in their acquaintance he was conscious of a strong desire to win her approval. 'Don't you like detectives?' 'I don't know. Somehow I shouldn't have thought you were one.' This restored Henry's equanimity somewhat. Naturally a detective does not want to look like a detective and give the whole thing away right at the start. 'I think--you won't be offended?' 'Go on.' 'I've always looked on it as rather a _sneaky_ job.' 'Sneaky!' moaned Henry. 'Well, creeping about, spying on people.' Henry was appalled. She had defined his own trade to a nicety. There might be detectives whose work was above this reproach, but he was a confirmed creeper, and he knew it. It wasn't his fault. The boss told him to creep, and he crept. If he declined to creep, he would be sacked _instanter_. It was hard, and yet he felt the sting of her words, and in his bosom the first seeds of dissatisfaction with his occupation took root. You might have thought that this frankness on the girl's part would have kept Henry from falling in love with her. Certainly the dignified thing would have been to change his seat at table, and take his meals next to someone who appreciated the romance of detective work a little more. But no, he remained where he was, and presently Cupid, who never shoots with a surer aim than through the steam of boarding-house hash, sniped him where he sat. He proposed to Alice Weston. She refused him. 'It's not because I'm not fond of you. I think you're the nicest man I ever met.' A good deal of assiduous attention had enabled Henry to win this place in her affections. He had worked patiently and well before actually putting his fortune to the test. 'I'd marry you tomorrow if things were different. But I'm on the stage, and I mean to stick there. Most of the girls want to get off it, but not me. And one thing I'll never do is marry someone who isn't in the profession. My sister Genevieve did, and look what happened to her. She married a commercial traveller, and take it from me he travelled. She never saw him for more than five minutes in the year, except when he was selling gent's hosiery in the same town where she was doing her refined speciality, and then he'd just wave his hand and whiz by, and start travelling again. My husband has got to be close by, where I can see him. I'm sorry, Henry, but I know I'm right.' It seemed final, but Henry did not wholly despair. He was a resolute young man. You have to be to wait outside restaurants in the rain for any length of time. He had an inspiration. He sought out a dramatic agent. 'I want to go on the stage, in musical comedy.' 'Let's see you dance.' 'I can't dance.' 'Sing,' said the agent. 'Stop singing,' added the agent, hastily. 'You go away and have a nice cup of hot tea,' said the agent, soothingly, 'and you'll be as right as anything in the morning.' Henry went away. A few days later, at the Bureau, his fellow-detective Simmonds hailed him. 'Here, you! The boss wants you. Buck up!' Mr Stafford was talking into the telephone. He replaced the receiver as Henry entered. 'Oh, Rice, here's a woman wants her husband shadowed while he's on the road. He's an actor. I'm sending you. Go to this address, and get photographs and all particulars. You'll have to catch the eleven o'clock train on Friday.' 'Yes, sir.' 'He's in "The Girl From Brighton" company. They open at Bristol.' It sometimes seemed to Henry as if Fate did it on purpose. If the commission had had to do with any other company, it would have been well enough, for, professionally speaking, it was the most important with which he had ever been entrusted. If he had never met Alice Weston, and heard her views upon detective work, he would have been pleased and flattered. Things being as they were, it was Henry's considered opinion that Fate had slipped one over on him. In the first place, what torture to be always near her, unable to reveal himself; to watch her while she disported herself in the company of other men. He would be disguised, and she would not recognize him; but he would recognize her, and his sufferings would be dreadful. In the second place, to have to do his creeping about and spying practically in her presence-- Still, business was business. At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack. The platform was crowded. Friends of the company had come to see the company off. Henry looked on discreetly from behind a stout porter, whose bulk formed a capital screen. In spite of himself, he was impressed.